Reflections: A musical legend

I first heard of Emahoy Tsege-Mariam Gebru from my nephew in California asking if I knew about an Ethiopian nun living in Israel. I was intrigued.

Something of a cult figure in music circles, she had been sequestered for the past 30 years in the Ethiopian convent in Jerusalem.

Her story reads like a movie script and the more I researched the more dramatic it became. Born in 1923 into an aristocratic family with close connections to Emperor Haile Selassie, she and her sister were the first Ethiopian girls ever sent to school in Switzerland. She was aged six. Everything was new and strange – the language, the weather, the food and the people.

Four Ethiopians injured in South Africa attack

 Three foreign nationals were shot and injured and a fourth was assaulted in their shop in Nsuze near Dundee, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Friday.

“Last night, 29 January 2015 at about 7:30pm four Ethiopians were in their shop at Bhamshela area at Nsuze when they were attacked by four armed suspects,” said Major Thulani Zwane in a statement.

“Three of the foreigners were shot and wounded and the fourth was badly assaulted by the suspects.”

The attackers fled with an undisclosed amount of money.

The injured victims were taken to hospital.

A case of attempted murder and business robbery had been opened.

Ethiopia says new railway to Djibouti to start in early 2016

Jan 28 (Reuters) - Ethiopia expects to open a new railway line linking the capital Addis Ababa with the Red Sea state of Djibouti in early 2016, a project at the centre of plans to create new manufacturing industries, the head of the state railways said.
The 700-km (450-mile)line is being built at a cost of $4 billion by China Railway Engineering Corporation (CREC) and China Civil Engineering Construction (CCECC). Ethiopia is seeking to have 5,000 km of new lines working across the country by 2020.
"By October 2015, a considerable portion of the Addis Ababa-Djibouti project will be finished," Getachew Betru, chief executive of the Ethiopian Railways Corporation, told Reuters, adding trains would run soon after. "We will start early 2016."
In addition to the Djibouti line, two others are being built across the country which are among a range of big infrastructure investments that also include new roads and dams to produce hydro-electric power.

South Sudan's Salva Kiir 'in hospital in Ethiopia'

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir has been rushed to hospital in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa, after becoming ill, an official has told the BBC.

Mr Kiir suffered from nose bleeds, the official said. Further details of his condition are not available.
His hospitalisation has delayed a summit of regional leaders called to discuss the conflict in South Sudan, the official said.
Mr Kiir, 63, has led the country since its independence from Sudan in 2011.
He held talks in Addis Ababa on Wednesday with rebel leader Riek Machar to end the civil war which has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 1.5 million since December 2013.

Ethiopia Bloggers to Enter Pleas in Terrorism Case Next Week

(Bloomberg) -- Ethiopian bloggers accused of plotting acts of terrorism will probably enter pleas next week after a court accepted amended charges from the prosecution.
The Federal High Court accepted most of the charges against 10 bloggers and journalists, Ameha Mekonnen, a defense lawyer for the writers, said on Wednesday from Addis Ababa, the capital. The defendants will enter pleas on Feb. 3, he said by phone.
Nine of the accused were detained in April and charged under a 2009 anti-terrorism law that the U.S. and United Nations said criminalizes legitimate dissent. The prosecution has said that the group participated in the planning of a plot with the U.S.-based Ginbot 7, which is classified as a terrorist organization in Ethiopia.

In November, the court rejected earlier charges and asked prosecutors to present more specific and clear accusations.
“They’ve said now it’s sufficiently clear but for us it’s not yet clear at all,” Mekonnen said.
http://www.bloomberg.com

Ethiopia's women vow to turn tide of violence, rape and murder

Justice for Hanna was launched after the murder of 16-year-old Hanna Lalango, who was repeatedly raped after being abducted in Addis Ababa. Photograph: JusticeForHannah

The low social status of Ethiopian women lies at the root of violence against them and the tragic cases of two teenagers have galvanised female activists in their efforts to tackle it

Tejnesh Leweg’neh, a 15-year-old from Ethiopia’s mountainous northern Shoa region, was abducted by three men on her way to market in October. They tried to force her to agree to marry one of them. She refused, and, a day later, they pushed her off a cliff. Now Tejnesh is paralysed from the waist down.
That same month, 16-year-old Hanna Lalango, from Ethiopia’s cosmopolitan capital, Addis Ababa, was abducted by a group of men from a minibus on the outskirts of the city. She was raped over several days and died in hospital about a month later from her injuries. Five men have been convicted and are awaiting sentence for the attack. Hanna reportedly identified her assailants before she died.
Both these crimes were brought to light by an energised network of mostly female Ethiopian activists trying to advance women’s rights and reduce sexual harassment in the Horn of Africa country.
“What united us is we believe this is our problem, it’s our responsibility to change this,” says one of them, Selam Mussie. “We all are Hannas – this could have been any of us.”
Mussie, an administrator at the International Community School in Addis Ababa, is part of the Justice for Hanna campaign.

Russian icon museum showcases Ethiopian art

CLINTON – The items on display in the Museum of Russian Icons have become legendary, part of the largest collection in North America.

Other cultures, however, have icons in their traditions, and through April 18, icons from the African nation of Ethiopia will be featured in an exhibit called "The Vibrant Art and Storied History of Ethiopian Icons."

The exhibit features 60 icons and artifacts, most borrowed from a private collection in Europe. At least one featured icon may remain behind, as museum founder Gordon Lankton eyed it as a possible addition to the museum's collection.

The icons are very different from the Russian styles.

Influences from Europe and the Middle East combined with Ethiopian culture create a different look, exhibit curator Marc Loerke said.